Description
Book SynopsisThe only text to cover both thermodynamic and statistical mechanics----allowing students to fully master thermodynamics at the macroscopic level. Presents essential ideas on critical phenomena developed over the last decade in simple, qualitative terms.
Table of ContentsGENERAL PRINCIPLES OF CLASSICAL THERMODYNAMICS.
The Problem and the Postulates.
The Conditions of Equilibrium.
Some Formal Relationships, and Sample Systems.
Reversible Processes and the Maximum Work Theorem.
Alternative Formulations and Legendre Transformations.
The Extremum Principle in the Legendre Transformed Representations.
Maxwell Relations.
Stability of Thermodynamic Systems.
First-Order Phase Transitions.
Critical Phenomena.
The Nernst Postulate.
Summary of Principles for General Systems.
Properties of Materials.
Irreversible Thermodynamics.
STATISTICAL MECHANICS.
Statistical Mechanics in the Entropy Representation: The Microanonical Formalism.
The Canonical Formalism;
Statistical Mechanics in Helmholtz Representation.
Entropy and Disorder;
Generalized Canonical Formulations.
Quantum Fluids.
Fluctuations.
Variational Properties, Perturbation Expansions, and Mean Field Theory.
FOUNDATIONS.
Postlude: Symmetry and the Conceptual Foundations of Thermostatistics.
Appendices.
General References.
Index.
